James Kennedy

“ Cursed be thy name, thy soil, as was my love.
⁠There rest, aye, in thy loftiness,
⁠To shame the plain around,
⁠Warderless castle, matron lone,
⁠In whom no beauty 's found.
⁠At thee time laughs, thy towers o'erthrown,
⁠Scorned by thy vassals, by thy Lord
⁠Deserted, rest, black skeleton!
⁠Stain of the vale's green sward.
⁠Priestless hermitage of Castille,
⁠On thee no banners wave;
⁠Unblazon'd gate, thy pointed vaults
⁠No more their weight can save:
⁠Thou hast no soldier on thy heights,
⁠No echo in thy halls,
⁠And rank weeds festering grow uncheck'd
⁠Beneath thy mouldering walls. ”

“ No longer are armies marching over India, supplying their wants by the plunder of its people, and leaving ruin in their track. No longer has the husbandman, when he sees at a distance the dust raised by the tramp of the Mahratta cavalry, to flee to his walled village, if he has one to flee to, or to his hamlet if he cannot do better, leaving his field, perhaps ready for the sickle, to be trodden down by the unwelcome stranger. ”

“ Return, my angel, to thy sphere,
Before the world shall see thee here:
The joys of earth are cursed and brief,
Buy them not with eternal grief!
Heaven is alone, my soul, secure
The mansion for an angel pure. ”

“ The most advanced thought of Hindu philosophy is that all is Maya, illusion, the play, the amusement of the Supreme, who leads us to believe that we are, that we have a separate existence, which we have not; but at last the illusion will come to an end, all will be absorbed in Brahm, as the water in the clouds falls into the sea; there will be no conscious existence in the universe. ”

“ The heart to soothe its griefs in tears to steep;
⁠As rain we see subdue the raging wave.
Weep then, ay, weep! others, and abler friends
⁠As faithful, with success may in thine ears
Make heard the voice that stoic virtue lends;
⁠But I, who in the world my cup of tears
Oft to the dregs have drain'd, no cure could find
⁠For grief, but what from grief I might derive;
When with vain struggling tired, the powerless mind
⁠Submissive ceased beneath the weight to strive. ”

“ The immortality that rises over the pale front of death, effaces it with a magnificent lustre. "It is impossible," says Ros de Olano, who has written the prologue to this beautiful poem, "to approach, by any words of ours whatever, to the luxuriousness of thought, of expression, and of knowledge displayed in this sublime description, the most happy perhaps yet presented in the Spanish language." Grand, extended and immense is the field which the poet has displayed to trace out a course for his hero, and the variety of tones he employs are like the face of the world, over which he has to range. ”

“ After stifling heat for some days, the rays of the sun beating with a fierceness which threatens to burn up all nature, and which drives the birds for shelter to the thickest foliage of the trees, the clouds gather, the thunder rolls, peal quickly succeeding peal, the lightning flashes incessantly, and then, after some heavy showers, there comes down for two or three days, with very little intermission, such torrents that it looks as if we were to be visited with a deluge. ”

“ Facts illustrative of its power over the features, character, and life, not only of individuals but of communities, are patent to all. Whatever heredity can do it does in infusing the spirit of Hinduism into the very blood of the people of Benares, who have been so long dominated by it. The mastery it has obtained over them is shown by the whole tone of their minds and the whole bearing of their life. If sincerity and enthusiasm be the essential requisites in religion, the inhabitants of this city have all they need, for these qualities are possessed by them in a high degree. ”

“ And from the silence found thee covering,
⁠That fiercely tore thee, bleeding and enchain'd!
"No, ye are not the same. But my lament
⁠Is not for this to cease: I could forget
The rigours which my conquerors relent,
⁠Their avarice with cruelties beset:
The crime was of the age, and not of Spain.
⁠But when can I forget the evils sore
Which I must miserably yet sustain?
⁠Among them one, come, see what I deplore,
If horror will not you deter. From you,
⁠Your fatal ships first launch'd, the mortal pest,
The poison that now desolates me flew. ”

“ If Hinduism was allowed full sway over its adherents society would go to pieces, while we should rise to the excellence of angels if we were to come under the full sway of the Gospel.
All have heard of the caste system of India, but only those who have lived among the people can understand its innumerable ramifications and its remarkable effects. Every caste, down to the lowest, is endlessly sub-divided. There are Brahmans who would as soon eat, drink, and intermarry with people of low caste, as with many who like themselves boast of Brahmanical blood. ”

“ My law is might, the wind my mark,
My country is the sea.
There blindly kings fierce wars maintain,
For palms of land, when here I hold
As mine, whose power no laws restrain,
Whatever the seas infold. ”

“ I can say for myself, that so far as the mere comfort of living is concerned I should greatly prefer a humble abode and simple fare in England, to the finest house and the most sumptuous fare in the plains of Northern India. It has been maintained by some that our only hope of success lies in our becoming ascetics, and outstripping by our austerities the Hindu saints. In other words, by acting as if we accepted Hindu principles of religion we are to overthrow Hinduism, and win the people to Christ. ”

“ Daughter of Spain, thy beauties gleam
⁠Alone my sun and moon on high,
⁠The dawn and brightness of my sky.
Since then I lose thy light today,
⁠Without that light I cannot live!
To Cordova I take my way;
⁠But in the doom my fortunes give,
⁠Alas! 't is death that I receive. ”

“ THE TOWER OF MUNION. [1]
Dark-shadow'd giant! shame of proud Castille,
Castle without bridge, battlements or towers,
In whose wide halls now loathsome reptiles steal,
Where nobles once and warriors held their bowers!
Tell me, where are they? where thy tapestries gay,
Thy hundred troubadours of lofty song?
Thy mouldering ruins in the vale decay,
Thou humbled warrior! time has quell'd the strong
Thy name and history to oblivion thrown,
The world forgets that there thou standst, Munion. ”

“ When in 1877 we were in a native state in Rajputana, a gentleman, who knew well the temper of the people, said that if our control was withdrawn the Rajputs and Mahrattas would be at each other's throats in a month. Our army has something better to do than to uphold an alien government. It has to prevent the outbreak of war which would desolate India from one end to the other. Happily its prestige is sufficient to avert this terrible evil, but the prestige can only continue while the army exists. ”

“ Bombay, since the opening of the Suez Canal, has made progress which somewhat affects the pre-eminence of Calcutta among the cities of India, but it still remains the capital of British India—I ought rather to say of India—and its position will continue to make it, what it has been in the past, a vast emporium of commerce, the abode of a great population, and a place of most stirring activity. It continues to be the resort of persons of every civilized, and almost every semi civilized, nation on the face of the earth. ”

“ Throughout the civilized world, and even beyond it, this eminent statesman has long been heard of, as one who, while devoting his life faithfully to promote the welfare of his own country, had exerted himself no less assiduously for the general interests of mankind. As an orator, a statesman and a political writer, he has thus obtained a deservedly high European reputation, due to his services and merits. In Spain he is further known as one of the first literary characters of whom his country has to boast, and as a dramatist and lyric poet of a very superior order. ”

“ No one can contemplate the demands the office makes on intellect, heart, and conscience, on love to the Lord Jesus Christ and love to souls, on wisdom, perseverance, and courage, without exclaiming with the great missionary Paul, "Who is sufficient for these things?" The idea that one unqualified for work at home would do for a missionary abroad is so preposterous that it is strange it should have ever been entertained by the most heedless.
There is, however, a great difference between an office and those who serve in an office. ”

“ Espronceda might have had the idea suggested by reading Lord Byron's poem, or Goethe's 'Faust,’ or both, but he has carried it much higher, and given the outlines of a nobler conception than either. He begins by supposing that, absorbed in meditation, during the silence of the night, he hears an extraordinary noise, which calls back his feelings and arouses them. That confused noise, with sublime music and solemn sound, are all the passions of the world, all the interests found in life,—the affections and hatreds, love, glory, wealth, the vices and the virtues ”

“ On some days we met bands of persons—chiefly men, with a woman here and there among them—with bamboo rods across their shoulders with a basket at each end, their travelling gear in and on one basket, and a vessel with Ganges water in the other. Thousands of these pilgrims travel every year over Northern India, going from one shrine to another, and pouring on certain images the water of the sacred river. ”

“ Now from the North fierce sweeps the blast;
Verdure and life from earth are past:
⁠With snow man sees it whelm'd betide,
⁠And in closed dwellings must abide.
⁠There all is death and grief! but here,
All life and joy! ”

“ In our own country, among our own people, we could not have felt safer than we ordinarily did. At the travelling season we went about, pitched our tents in solitary spots, for weeks together perhaps did not see a white face, and were treated not only with courtesy, but generally with profound deference, as if we belonged to a superior race. The people in their obsequious fashion, and with their idolatrous views, would almost have given us divine honours. All at once we realized ourselves as living in the midst of a dense alien population. ”

“ JOSÈ ZORRILLA. [1]
It has been said that "the life of a poet is ever a romance." Perhaps this observation may apply equally well to the history of every man of ardent genius who enters with characteristic enthusiasm into the affairs of life, so as to invest even ordinary circumstances with the glow and hue of his own excited imagination. But this is more especially the case with poets who make us participate in their feelings, their joys or their sorrows, so as to give a character of romance to incidents that with other persons would have passed away as unnoticed. ”

“ In our own country, under the pressure of life, many hail the release from toil and the refreshment of spirit promised by the annual summer trip. So in India missionaries avail themselves of the cold season to sally out for the prosecution of their work. Their main object is to make known the gospel to the many whom they are sure to meet wherever their tent may be pitched, who have never heard the name of Jesus, except perhaps amidst the bustle and noise of a mela, and who but for itineracies would remain in total ignorance of the Saviour of mankind. ”

“ Of grief, 't was mine of all my feelings drear,
⁠To pour in song the passion and the pains;
⁠And now to Thee I dedicate the strains,
My Wife! when Love, from youth's illusions freer,
In our pure hearts is glowing deep and clear,
⁠And calm serene for me the daylight gains. ”

“ They form by far the largest portion of the population of India, and to them Benares—or as they delight to call it, Kasee the Splendid, the Glorious City—is the most sacred spot on earth. They say, indeed, it is not built on the earth, but on a point of Shiva's trident. They assert that at one time it was of gold, but in this degenerate age it has been turned into stone and clay. In their belief the Ganges is sacred through its entire course, but as it flows past the sacred city its cleansing efficacy is supposed to be vastly increased. ”

“ O! how the memory of pleasures past
Now wearies me! horrible that soul's state,
Of flowers of. hope, or freshness desolate!
What then remains it? Bitterness o'ercast.
This south wind kills me: O! that I could rest
In sweet oblivion, temporary death!
Kind sleep might moderate my feverish breath,
And my worn soul again with strength be blest.
My Horse, my friend, I do implore thee, fly!
Though with the effort break my frame so weak:
Grant for thy master's brows he thus may seek
Sleep's balmy wings spread forth benignantly.
Let him from thee gain such refreshment kind ”

“ I have conversed with some who seemed to me set on knowing and doing the will of God, who showed, so far as I could obtain an insight into their character, a reverent, earnest, humble temper, as if they had come under the power of the few passages, occurring here and there in the Quran, which inculcate spirituality of mind and love to all men, and as if they had in a measure escaped from the externalism so prominent in that book, and from its hard, fierce, bitter tone towards all who refuse to receive it as a revelation from heaven. ”

“ It shows itself in unison with the spirit that has always animated the people in their public conduct, in their loyalty and devotion, the same now as a thousand years since, making every hill a fortress and every plain a battle-field, to dispute the ground at every foot with the enemy till they were driven from their soil. ”

“ If the potato was good for the body, as many of them showed they thought by partaking of it, might not our religion be good for the soul? If they resorted in crowds to the railway carriages even when going on pilgrimage to their sacred places, if in their earthly travels they found these carriages so serviceable, might they not find the religion of Christ, if candidly considered, the best vehicle for carrying them to heaven? We have much sympathy with the feeling of reverence for ancestors, but they are not entitled to tyrannize over their descendants. ”

“ Political and moral turbulences are the same as the great physical disorders, in which the elements becoming excited, no one is sheltered from their fury."
Resigning himself thus to his fate, Quintana seems to have learned the philosophical secret of preserving his equanimity in all the vicissitudes of life, to the enjoyment of a tranquil old age. The privilege of attaining this is a favour to every one, to whom it is granted; but its highest enjoyments must be consequent only on a life of active usefulness, with a conscience void of offence. ”

“ The ministering priests—Pundas as they are called—are, as a rule, coarse-looking men, with shaven head, save with a long pendent tuft from the crown, with the mark of their god on their forehead, and are very scantily attired. They clamour for a present when a European appears, and if given it is declared to be an offering to the god of the place. Among the crowd you see men with matted hair and body bedaubed with ashes, who have broken away from all domestic and social duties, and devote themselves to what is called a religious life. ”

“ But it was one of those occasions when a right mind and strong heart availed more than conventional dignity; and thus, though perhaps the youngest person present, Angel de Saavedra rose up, and with all the impetuosity of youth, declared in impassioned language, that "none of the guard would do treason to their country, or become an instrument of foreign tyranny, for the oppression and punishment of their companions in arms." ”

“ I can only say when we review our Indian life, that while deeply humbled at the recollection of many errors and defects, defects in wisdom, zeal, and love, we are deeply grateful for having been privileged to labour for so many years in the service of our adorable Redeemer, not, we trust, without proof that good was accomplished through our instrumentality; and so long as we breathe, our hearts will steadily turn towards India with ardent love, and with fervent prayer for the spiritual and temporal welfare of its inhabitants. ”

“ Why does a worldly image rise
As if my prayer to stain?
Perchance in evil shadow's guise,
Which may when by the morrow flies
Sign of a curse remain.
Why has my mind been doomed to dream
A phantom loveliness? ”

“ Never was a comparatively small nation entrusted with so vast a work as that committed to us by our undertaking to administer the government of a continent thousands of miles from our shores, inhabited by two hundred and fifty-four millions, who differ widely from us in language, religion, habits, history, associations—in almost everything in which one nation can differ from another. Two hundred millions are under our direct rule, and the rest are under native rulers who acknowledge our Queen as suzerain. ”

“ Me more thy sorrow now has grieved,
⁠Than thy disdain before.
My bliss! I pray no more to swerve!
⁠Calm those heart-breaking pains:
Thy grief to have, does not deserve
⁠All that the world contains. ”

“ When we leave statistics we have recourse to impression, and that impression depends greatly on circumstances, and still more, perhaps, on the temperament of the observer. It is very difficult to gauge public opinion. When we think of all the influences at work, such as education, both primary and more advanced, Christian literature, missionary effort in many forms, railway travelling, commerce, and a Government bent on doing justice, we look forward with hope to an awaking of the Hindu mind, under which it will seek and embrace the highest good. ”

“ The strict censorship which has weighed down the energies of the country, with regard to most subjects of public discussion, has had the effect of directing talent to the cultivation of poetry, as almost the only road to literary reputation.This it is, combined with the sensitive character of the nation, that has made their poets attain the eminence we are bound in justice to award them; and it is fortunate for them that they have in their language so admirable an exponent of their genius, as it must in fairness be allowed, though the merit still remains peculiarly their own. ”

“ In the middle and lower classes in Northern India we are told, by those whose testimony can be trusted, monogamy is the rule. Many lead a quiet, orderly life, with the domestic affections in full play which beautify and gladden the home. A Muhammadan writer, who may be supposed to know his own people, tells us that polygamy is getting out of favour, and that a strong feeling has set in in favour of a man having only one woman to wife. Among them there are undoubtedly persons of high character, whose bearing would do honour to the adherents of a far higher creed. ”

“ The loss to Spain and the whole literary world was as great as it was irreparable; and so the people seemed to feel it, by the general expression of regret over his fate, such as it seldom falls to the lot of any one to excite.
The moralist might dilate on the evil courses which pro- bably hastened his death, and all must lament that a man of such extraordinary genius should have sunk under them; but before we judge any one severely, we should be certain of being able to form a right judgement. ”

“ The most candid and thoughtful of the class will allow that as a community they labour under great disadvantages. Though they have native blood in their veins they are entirely separate from natives in those things to which natives attach the highest value; and though by the profession of Christianity, by the adoption of European habits so far as circumstances allow, and by the use of the English language, they draw to Europeans, yet they are forced to feel they do not belong to them. They occupy an awkward middle position, and the knowledge that they do leads to unpleasant grating. ”